What Matzah Represents | Passover haggadah by Simple Jew

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We say that מצה is eaten because we didn’t have time to let it rise. That means to say that all the Jews left within 18 minutes. How is this possible? Try doing this with a small class of yeshiva students! This is quite the miracle. The only way this could be done is if the Jews were manipulated and seduced to leave. That’s exactly what was going on when we left בחיפזון . The Jews were exposed to something which allowed them, in a very short amount of time, to free them from all the things which they identified with. Somehow, their paganism and culture, which they were so enthralled with, was gone. Now, they were leaving. No questions asked. We celebrate חיפזון for this reason. The ( בית יעקב (ספר הזמנים ע׳ כ-כא ד״ה מצה זו explains that when we ate the מצה in Egypt; it wasn’t really us. We were glassy-eyed. There was an end product though. That was the 38 years of quiet in the desert. That was the real success. הר סיני wasn’t enough. That was the beginning of the process. It was the 38 years of silence where success was seen. To take those 38 years in the desert and try to taste freedom without being glassy-eyed
and really understand in a deep way, by ourselves and without a jolt from G-d, that it was the right thing to do. This is the meaning of the שִׁבְעַ֥ת יָמִ֛ים תּֽאֹכַל־עָלָ֥יו מַצּ֖וֹת לֶ֣חֶם ע֑נִֹי כִּ֣י בְחִפָּז֗וֹן יָצָ֙אתָ֙ פסוק מֵאֶ֣רֶץ מִצְרַ֔יִם . We eat the מצה because of the חיפזון experience. In Egypt, we listened to Him without any personal reckoning and thought; in חיפזון we just followed Him. We recreate that experience today when we eat the מצה . The only difference is that now we don’t need the be jump-started. When we left Egypt, we didn't know if it was the right thing to do. We just did it. We were manipulated. G-d did it, and for His purpose, “I’m gonna take them out and I’m gonna bring them where they should be.” It was His decision, not ours. We didn’t leave because we wanted to. We didn't even accept the תורה because we wanted to. We were just glassy-eyed. We were manipulated to say נעשה ונשמע . Now, we’ve developed and learnt to recognize Him and follow Him totally without that added boost. How did this happen? G-d revealed Himself at that time. That sudden injection of G-d awareness gave them the capability of a total divorce from everything they identified with. Egypt was a great place. It was like גן ה׳ . Some of these Jews were best friends with their Egyptian counterparts. Why not? Some of them were slaves too! There were some Jews who were wealthy too. Not all the Jews were slaves. There’s the way the social hierarchy works. Not everyone was schlepping stones. Some of them actually liked it there. How could they leave all that? It reminds me of the Jews of Germany. They didn’t want to leave either. Their lives were there. The only way out was with ה׳ revealing Himself. They left, but it wasn’t out of their own volition. They didn’t want to leave their homeland. But G-d wanted it and they followed Him. They negated themselves and followed G-d. G-d infused them with a certain profound awareness of truth and they couldn’t walk away from it. This is פיתוי קטנה אונס . He blew their minds with a revelation way
beyond their level. They listened to the pied piper. They didn’t go with their own דעת . It was total manipulation. That’s why it was בחיפזון . When you’re glassy-eyed and your mind is blown, you can move under 18 minutes because you’re not in control. And this is exactly what G-d did for the next two years in the desert. The מדרש writes that once the Jews saw the Egyptians dead at קריעת ים סוף they wanted to make an עבודה זרה . Moshe had to coerce the people to keep going forward into the desert. They wanted to go back. The taskmasters are dead, our discomfort is over, so let’s go back. We repeated this again at הר סיני when we made the עגל . This went on and on for the next two years. There was a lot of struggle, but in the end, it worked. G-d manipulated us, jump starting out religious battery and we started to move. For the rest of the 40 years in the desert we learnt the תורה and internalized monotheism. All these things are celebrations of G-d manipulating us and it’s very nice that He did. All that investment for those 38 years. The most beautiful part of the Bible is the Bible that doesn’t talk. The silent Bible, that’s the success of the story. The two years before, that’s the candy, the carrot, and the whip (every so often). And it worked. Once they came to Israel, they had trials, they had tribulations and they failed.

But you know what? There were always things happening and always things coming up and they thrived. You know how I know it worked? Because throughout all the ניסיונות of history, we are a nation which is still alive still breathing monotheism. We are a nation which has impacted humanity. All other religions which preach monotheism came to be because of us, the nation who experienced Sinai. The world is moving towards monotheism. It’s all because these pagan slaves were taken out, seduced, to be re-educated, and He did it.

haggadah Section: -- Cup #2 & Dayenu